Published on Aug 20, 1998
For those of you still thinking of Mariah Carey being a clone of
Whitney Houston, simply compare the quality of their debut albums.
Whitney Houston is a vocal showcase of mostly MOR ballads
and Prince wannabe dance cuts, ten horrendous songs of low-quality
production and nothing new in the vocal technique department.
Mariah Carey draws from gospel to rap to even opera in its
ambitious attempt to push the young singer-songwriter into
international across-the-charts stardom.
Various “moments of brilliance” holds nothing back at what she
could do if the spirit (and vocal cords) are willing. The
gargantuan gospel number “There’s Got To Be A Way” has her
confidently singing over the choir in her rousing jazz tradition
cultivated from late-night jam sessions with her mother’s band. Her
screw-you rap in “Prisoner”, though misplaced, does everything MC
Lyte can do with twice the style. Self-written, self-produced
“Vanishing” featuring just backing vocals and piano is her tribute
to Aretha Franklin’s “Evil Gal Blues” days as well as a soul feat
she wouldn’t repeat until “The Beautiful Ones” in
Butterfly.
Gospel-based “Vision Of Love” is the song most associated with
Carey, for which she won a Record of the Year Grammy. It’s one of
the songs that suffer from the state-of-the-art production (“too
shmaltzy”, Carey says of her early producers) and a starker, more
livelier version is performed in concerts today. She could have
written “I Don’t Wanna Cry” for Celine Dion, a straight MOR ballad
devoid of Carey’s jazz approval.
Vocally, Carey is so talented she could sing two notes at the
same time. This unsettling phenomena as well as her flagolet (“dog
whistle”) range drew attention away from her improv skills and
sheer control. Ensuing albums saw less and less of her rare vocal
diversity, surfacing only in less known cuts like “If It’s Over”
and “Underneath The Stars”.
Seven years later,
Mariah Carey has finally stopped hovering over her career;
Butterfly is now
the Mariah Carey album replacing ambition with
sophistication. But even back then, The Ultimate Whitney Clone had
long surpassed her calling when “Vision Of Love” launched a voice
that delighted fans, ticked critics, and opened a decade to a group
of chart-topping ’90s women, known as:
The Divas.